Electronic Tattoos Add Power to Wearable Computing

Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University's College of Engineering and the Institute of Systems and Robotics at the University of Coimbra , Portugal, have developed a simple, efficient method to make robust, highly flexible, tattoo-like circuits for use in wearable computing. The low-cost process adds a trace of an electrically conductive, liquid metal alloy to tattoo paper that adheres to human skin. These ultrathin tattoos can be applied easily with water, the same way one would apply a child's decorative tattoo with a damp sponge. Other tattoo-like electronics either require complex fabrication techniques inside a cleanroom or lack the material required for stretchable digital circuit functionality on skin. Carmel Majidi, an associate professor of mechanical engineering and director of CMU's Soft Machines Lab , and Mahmoud Tavakoli, director of the Soft and Printed Microelectronics Laboratory at the University of Coimbra, partnered to develop methods for direct printing of stretchable electronic circuits. The tattoos are being developed under the Strechtonics project, one of the Entrepreneurial Research Initiatives of the Carnegie Mellon-Portugal Program , funded by the Fundação para a Ciência Tecnologia (FCT) and coordinated by Professor Aníbal Traça de Almeida. Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering Carmel Majidi discusses electronic tattoos, which are circuits made of silver nanoparticles printed on the same film used for children's tattoos.